National Federation of Trade Union- APIA Overview of current social dialogue agenda in Romania and the main issues and challenges ENERGY UNION CRAIOVA National Federation of Trade Union- APIA

Romania- Trade unions no longer part of social dialogue committees The five trade unions confederations have decided to suspend their activity within all the social dialogue committees and the Economic and Social Council indefinitely. They are dissatisfied with the legal provisions concerning the right to collective negotiations. According to them, the suppression of the collective labor contract at the national level by law no 62/The Code of Social Dialogue, concluded on may 2011 and not adopting a regulation establishing activity sectors in the Official Gazette until 29th of December 2011, has made it impossible to obtain representativeness of social partners and conduct collective negotiations at all levels.

The Code of Social Dialogue included draft laws on trade unions, employers associations or the organization of the Economic and Social Council. Amendments: The Code abolished the collective labor agreements at national level with a major impact on the activities of the social partners. The scheduling of union activities during working hours is now at the discretion of the parties to collective agreements. Besides the reduction in the number of economic branches, the Social Dialogue Code new eligibility criteria for representation at company level. A trade union is representative if the number of its members is equal to at least 50% plus 1 of the total number of the company’s employees (instead of one-third, under the former law).

Consequences: The integration of the entire body of legislation on social dialogue into a single law apparently eliminated the pyramid-like system of collective bargaining. This means abolishing the single general national collective agreement enshrining equal rights for all employees, irrespective of sector, professional area and corporate entity, and irrespective of an employee’s trade union membership status. The social dialogue law now completely annihilates any national collective bargaining agreement concept, providing collective bargaining agreements only for sectors, groups of companies and companies.

Common decision of T.U. The five confederations sustain that this is the only non-application of the legal framework and this is the reason why they have decided to no longer participate in any social dialogue committee or committees; they also argue that Law 62/2011 regarding social dialogue should be amended and aligned with EU directives, but also with international labor conventions. The trade union members are asking for a responsible social dialogue, which means that normative acts should not be discussed by committees after having already been adopted by the Government- e.g. Labor Code/2011. According to them, until the demands are not handled, they will not reverse the decision of not taking part in the commissions.

Challenges The T.U. priorities in 2012: To reach representation under the new law of social dialogue; To retrieve the reduced wages into 2010 in Courts; To strenghten the federation by attracting new members; To restore social dialogue; To formulate and support draft legislation or amendments to existing legislation in accordance with E.U. standards on rights and interests of its members; To promote and improve T.U. activity to better represent our members; To continue to cooperate with other national and international unions.

Thank you for your attention!